APRIL2006

http://www.guardian.co.uk/international/story/0,,1751874,00.html             ------------------------------ "There is No Remedy Against the Language of Truth"
By ROBERT FISK, The Independent, April 6, 2006
http://www.counterpunch.com/fisk04062006.html

At a second-hand book stall in the Rue Monsieur le Prince in Paris a few
days ago, I came across the second volume of Victor Klemperer's diaries.
The first volume, recounting his relentless, horrifying degradation as a
German Jew in the first eight years of Hitler's rule--from 1933 to
1941--I had bought in Pakistan just before America's 2001 bombardment of
Afghanistan.

It was a strange experience--while sipping tea amid the relics of the
Raj, roses struggling across the lawn beside me, an old British military
cemetery at the end of the road--to read of Klemperer's efforts to
survive in Dresden with his wife Eva as the Nazis closed in on his
Jewish neighbours. Even more intriguing was to find that the infinitely
heroic Klemperer, a cousin of the great conductor, showed great
compassion for the Palestinian Arabs of the 1930s who feared that they
would lose their homeland to a Jewish state.

"I cannot help myself," Klemperer writes on 2 November 1933, nine months
after Hitler became Chancellor of Germany. "I sympathise with the Arabs
who are in revolt (in Palestine), whose land is being 'bought'. A Red
Indian fate, says Eva."

Even more devastating is Klemperer's critique of Zionism--which he does
not ameliorate even after Hitler's Holocaust of the Jews of Europe
begins. "To me," he writes in June of 1934, "the Zionists, who want to
go back to the Jewish state of AD70 ... are just as offensive as the
Nazis. With their nosing after blood, their ancient 'cultural roots',
their partly canting, partly obtuse winding back of the world they are
altogether a match for the National Socialists..."

Yet Klemperer's day-by-day account of the Holocaust, the cruelty of the
local Dresden Gestapo, the suicide of Jews as they are ordered to join
the transports east, his early knowledge of Auschwitz--Klemperer got
word of this most infamous of extermination camps as early as March
1942, although he did not realise the scale of the mass murders there
until the closing months of the war--fill one with rage that anyone
could still deny the reality of the Jewish genocide.

Reading these diaries as the RER train takes me out to Charles de Gaulle
airport--through the 1930s art deco architecture of Drancy station where
French Jews were taken by their own police force before transportation
to Auschwitz--I wish President Ahmadinejad of Iran could travel with me.

For Ahmadinejad it was who called the Jewish Holocaust a "myth", who
ostentatiously called for a conference--in Tehran, of course--to find
out the truth about the genocide of six million Jews, which any sane
historian acknowledges to be one of the terrible realities of the 20th
century, along, of course, with the Holocaust of one and a half million
Armenians in 1915.

The best reply to Ahmadinejad's childish nonsense came from ex-president
Khatami of Iran, the only honourable Middle East leader of our time,
whose refusal to countenance violence by his own supporters inevitably
and sadly led to the demise of his "civil society" at the hands of more
ruthless clerical opponents. "The death of even one Jew is a crime,"
Khatami said, thus destroying in one sentence the lie that his successor
was trying to propagate.

Indeed, his words symbolised something more important: that the
importance and the evil of the Holocaust do not depend on the Jewish
identity of the victims. The awesome, wickedness of the Holocaust lies
in the fact that the victims were human beings--just like you and me.

How do we then persuade the Muslims of the Middle East of this simple
truth? I thought that the letter which the head of the Iranian Jewish
Committee, Haroun Yashayaie, wrote to Ahmadinejad provided part of the
answer. "The Holocaust is not a myth any more than the genocide imposed
by Saddam (Hussein) on Halabja or the massacre by (Ariel) Sharon of
Palestinians and Lebanese in the camps of Sabra and Chatila,"
Yashayaie--who represents Iran's 25,000 Jews--said.

Note here how there is no attempt to enumerate the comparisons. Six
million murdered Jews is a numerically far greater crime than the
thousands of Kurds gassed at Halabja or the 1,700 Palestinians murdered
by Israel's Lebanese Phalangist allies at Sabra and Chatila in 1982. But
Yashayaie's letter was drawing a different kind of parallel: the pain
that the denial of history causes to the survivors.

I have heard Israelis deny their army's involvement in the Sabra and
Chatila massacres--despite Israel's own official enquiry which proved
that Ariel Sharon sent the murderers into the camps--and I remember how
the CIA initially urged US embassies to blame Iran for the gassings at
Halabja.

Indeed, it is easy to find examples of one of the most egregious lies
uttered against the 750,000 Palestinians who fled their land in 1948:
that they were ordered by Arab radio stations to flee their homes until
the Jews had been "driven into the sea"--when they would return to take
back their property. Israeli academic researchers have themselves proved
that no such radio broadcasts were ever made, that the Palestinians
fled--victims of what we would today call ethnic cleansing--after a
series of massacres by Israeli forces, especially in the village of Deir
Yassin, just outside Jerusalem.

So what is there to learn from the second volume of Klemperer's diaries?
Just after he received word from the Gestapo that he and Eva were to be
transported east to their deaths, the RAF raided Dresden and, amid the
tens of thousands of civilians which the February 1945 firestorm
consumed, the Gestapo archives also went up in flames. All record of the
Klemperers' existence was turned to ash, like the Jews who preceded them
to Auschwitz. So the couple took off their Jewish stars and wandered
Germany as refugees without papers until they found salvation after the
Nazi surrender.

Just before their rescue, they showed compassion to three distraught
German soldiers who were lost in the forests of their homeland. And even
during their worst ordeals, as they waited for the doorbell to ring and
the Gestapo to arrive to search their Dresden home and notify them of
their fate, Klemperer was able to write in his diary a sentence which
every journalist and historian should learn by heart: "There is no
remedy against the truth of language."

Robert Fisk is a reporter for The Independent and author of Pity the
Nation. He is also a contributor to CounterPunch's collection, The
Politics of Anti-Semitism. Fisk's new book is The Conquest of the Middle East.
--------------------------------

Italy's centre-left opposition leader Romano Prodi has been declared official winner of the parliamentary election after an extremely close race.

But his rival, centre-right PM Silvio Berlusconi, refused to admit defeat, saying there had been irregularities.

Official results showed Mr Prodi had won just enough seats to control the Senate (upper house) after having already won a lower house majority.

He rejected Mr Berlusconi's suggestion of forming a grand coalition.

The count gave Mr Prodi 158 Senate seats, against 156 for Mr Berlusconi.

The final results came after a nail-biting night of conflicting forecasts, based on exit polls and partial counts, which variously put the coalitions of Mr Prodi and his rival ahead.

Mr Berlusconi, who won two previous elections, suggested forming a grand coalition spanning both camps, like that in Germany.

"Anyone with good sense should consider a government... which contains the representatives of all the Italians," he told reporters.

A spokesman for Mr Prodi said the centre-left planned to govern with the coalition it had put to the voters and rejected the idea of a grand coalition "absolutely".

Berlusconi disputes Prodi victory

Romano Prodi insists he can lead a strong government

News Flash: The Dam is Breaking on the 9/11 Cover-Up ?
More Stars Go Public with Demands for 9/11 Investigation, Others to Follow

Infowars | March 28, 2006

Award winning actor, director, producer, and pioneering anti-Iraq war activist Ed Asner is scheduled to appear live on the CNN Headline News program Showbiz Tonight (6pm CST). Asner is reportedly going on to support Charlie Sheen's bold and brave stance calling for a real investigation of the events on September 11th, 2001 as well as to raise his own questions.

Also on Showbiz Tonight on March 27, actress Sharon Stone defended Sheen and his First Amendment right to speak out saying that he is brave and that it is important to confront authority.

Asner and Sheen are just two more of many celebrities who have already come forward to question the official story of what happened on 9/11.

Actor James Woods began questioning the official fable in the first weeks right after 9/11. X-Files and Lone Gunmen star Dean Haglund has already gone public on the Alex Jones Show (December 18, 2004) questioning the official story. Actor Ed Begley, Jr. hosted a 9/11 Truth Symposium in New York City several months ago.

And we have recently confirmed that one of the world's most popular and beloved musicians is awake to the truth about 9/11 and in the very near future may be going public.

Many more major stars who are considering going public have contacted us in recent days.

The dam is finally breaking. Delta Force Founder Eric Haney has spoken out in the press about the "War on Terrorism" being bogus and how there is no real threat to the United States. The 9/11 Truth Movemet has reached critical mass and is now exploding. The perpitrators of 9/11 have got to be concerned as more and more people across the globe wake up to the 9/11 hoax.

Disgraced former US lobbyist Jack Abramoff has been jailed for nearly six years for conspiracy and fraud.
Abramoff - who had close links to top Republicans - had pleaded guilty to the charges, which relate to the purchase of a fleet of casino boats in 2000.

In a separate case, he has admitted to tax evasion, defrauding his clients and conspiring to bribe public officials. The case has sent shockwaves through Washington's political establishment.
BBCWorld News Excerpt